1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lockable tonneau cover for use on a pickup truck which cover can double as a materials carrier.
2. Background of the Prior Art
The pickup truck is the workhorse of many tradesmen. The pickup truck is relatively small and nimble, allowing access to most work sites, even those that lack paved roads, yet has a bed that can carry a substantial load to the work site. The pickup truck bed can be loaded with a relatively sizable amount of material such as pipes, conduits, or lumber, or can carry needed tools to the site including compressors, generators, and a multitude of hand tools. One shortcoming experienced by pickup truck owners concerns the need to carry a diversified load. Many workers, such as framers and plumbers, need a wide assortment of hand tools as well as the needed supplies to carry out the job. While the materials are generally secured at a supply house that is frequented on the way to the job site, the tools remain with the worker from job to job. As these tools are relatively small and valuable, they must be protected from theft whenever the worker is away from the truck such as at the supply house, at lunch, or even at home after hours as unloading and the reloading a large amount of hand tools can be quite time-consuming and labor-intensive.
To address the need to secure hand tools, many pickup truck owners securely install some form of tool box within the pickup truck bed and lock the tool box as needed. Such boxes generally take one of two forms, either a large box that is bolted to the truck bed at its forward end or a tonneau cover that uses the truck bed's floor and four sides as part of the box with the cover forming the top of the box. In either case, the locks used with the tool box help prevent theft of the valuable tools from all but the most ardent of thieves. The problem created by the use of these tool boxes is that they, by necessity, take up valuable real estate within the pickup truck bed leaving less room to carry bulky supplies such as pipe or lumber. This results in the need to make multiple stops at the supply house which is time-consuming especially on a remote location site. Alternately, the tradesman has the supply house deliver the needed materials. However, this alternative can increase the costs to the tradesman from the delivery charges imposed by the supply house and can be time inefficient as the tradesman might be sitting idle at the job site waiting for the supply truck to arrive. Still a further solution is to have a second person help the tradesman get the supplies in this second person's truck. However, the problem with this method is that it is inefficient in requiring a second person and truck to accomplish the job, can still be problematic if the selected second person's truck lacks space due to the presence of a tool box within the truck, and the potential exists that no such second person is available.
To address such concerns, devices have been proposed that allow a pickup truck owner to carry a locked tool box while at the same time have sufficient room within the pickup truck to carry a relatively large supply of job materials. One type of such device is a truck rack that is bolted into the pickup truck bed and rises over the bed and oftentimes over the pickup truck cab. Any tool boxes are secured within the pickup truck bed in the usual way and materials are secured on the rack. While this type of device solves some of the tradesman's problems, these devices are not without shortcomings. Many of these devices, due to the structural struts used to form the racks, make access to the tool box within the bed awkward. Additionally, as such devices are fixedly attached to the pickup truck, movement of large objects, such as a refrigerator, tends to be difficult requiring the removal of the rack from the truck, which may be a very difficult and time-consuming undertaking. Furthermore, the rack clearly identifies the truck as a work truck which is undesirable to some workers who use the truck for personal purposes such as dating and do not want to use a “work truck” while others live in neighborhoods where the parking of work trucks may be restricted by restrictive covenants of the neighborhood.
Another type of device that is used is a convertible tonneau cover that covers the bed of the pickup truck and locks in place protecting the tools, yet also converts to a rack system that is capable of carrying needed supplies without the need to unload the tools. These devices allow a truck owner to carry tools securely and also carry a relatively large amount of material simultaneously while allowing the “removal” of the rack after the work day so as not to permanently mark the pickup truck as a work truck. The problem with such convertible tonneau covers is that many such devices are unduly complex in design. This makes such devices relatively expensive to obtain and also makes converting the device between standard tonneau cover and a rack-based system difficult and time-consuming. Additionally, many devices, due to the temporary nature of the rack to which the devices are converted, result in a rack that lacks the structural integrity of a fixed truck rack system. As a result, such systems are limited in the size of the load which can be placed upon the rack to which the device converts.
What is needed is a device that allows a worker to carry tools within the bed of a pickup truck with the ability to lock the tools whenever needed, while at the same time being able to carry a relatively large amount of supplies to a work site. Such a device must be of relatively simple design and construction so that it is not unduly expensive to produce and obtain and so that the device is capable of converting between a standard tonneau cover and a rack-based system in relatively short order. Such a device must be able to convert to a rack-based system that has substantial structural integrity so as to be able to handle relatively large material loads. Such a device must allow a user to be able to minimize the work truck look associated with the pickup truck.